Balloon Festival NJ 2026: Warren County’s Three Hot Air Balloon Events

Most callers who book a balloon-festival ride with us still ask for Solberg. The Readington runway, the late-July Friday-evening mass ascension, the festival they grew up with. We have to break the news on the same call: there’s no QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning in 2026, the event remains on extended hiatus, and the third-party calendars listing it for this year are wrong. If you want to see balloons go up in New Jersey this season, you’re going to Warren County, and there are three different weekends to choose from.

This guide is the version of that conversation we have on the phone every spring, written down. We run multi-family transfers from the Newark airport out to northwest New Jersey almost every weekend of the summer, and the Warren County balloon-festival weekends are some of the prettiest light-traffic Saturday drives we get all year. Below is the full balloon festival NJ 2026 picture: three events, two venues, real tethered-ride pricing from balloonfestnj.com, and the I-78 timing that catches first-time visitors off guard. If you already know you want a vehicle for the day, the Newark airport Sprinter van service page has the multi-family math locked in.

Balloon festivals in NJ: Warren County hosts all three in 2026

What happened to the Solberg, QuickChek, and NJ Lottery festival

Plainly stated: the QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport in Readington has been on extended hiatus since 2024. The festival ran for roughly 40 years on that runway and built decades of brand equity around the name “New Jersey Festival of Ballooning.” When the 2024 and 2025 editions were canceled and no 2026 date was announced, third-party event aggregators kept publishing legacy listings anyway. Those listings are out of date. If Solberg ever resumes, that’s a major calendar shift and we’ll update this post, but as of late May 2026 the runway is quiet.

The mental association is sticky, though. A meaningful share of every search for “balloon festival NJ” or “NJ balloon festival” is really someone looking for the Solberg event under a different name. That’s part of why we wrote this post the way we did. You came looking for one festival, and the actual answer for 2026 is a different organization running three festivals at two venues an hour west of the runway you remember.

The three Warren County events that fill the gap

Flying Festivals of Warren County, a non-profit formed in fall 2022, runs all three. Everything is listed at balloonfestnj.com with the current schedule, pricing, and rain dates. Two festivals share Warren Community College in Washington, NJ as the venue. The third festival, the big week-long one, is at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Harmony Township near Phillipsburg, about 15 miles west. Different venue, different scale, different vibe. We’ll cover each below in calendar order.

Warren County Hot Air Balloons, Arts and Crafts Festival (June 6 and 7, 2026)

Warren Community College at 475 Route 57, Washington: what to expect

The June edition kicks off the 2026 balloon-festival season. Warren Community College sits on a working campus with a wide grassy field that doubles as the launch and tether area for festival weekends. The Arts and Crafts framing tells you most of what you need to know: vendor tents around the perimeter selling handmade work, food trucks lining one edge, kids’ activities in the middle, and balloons on the field. The crowd is local-leaning, family-heavy, and gentle. This isn’t the Coachella of ballooning. It’s a county-fair-scale event with hot air balloons as the marquee draw.

Parking, directions, and the 1:00 to 8:30 PM schedule

Festival hours both days are 1:00 PM to 8:30 PM. The schedule is built around the evening launch window, which is the one you came for. Tethered rides typically run in the calmer-air windows, with the mass evening ascension targeted around 6:00 to 7:00 PM, weather permitting. Parking is on the campus grass lots, free with festival admission, and the campus access road off Route 57 handles the inbound flow without much pain on a Saturday afternoon. The drive itself is the part that catches first-time visitors. Plan for I-78 west to the Route 57 exit, then a roughly 10-minute final approach on Route 57 east toward Washington. Rain dates are June 13 and 14, so if the forecast looks rough the week-of, keep the following weekend open.

Warren County Farmers’ Fair and Hot Air Balloon Festival (July 25 to August 1, 2026)

The week-long county fair plus balloon festival: a different scale

This one is the big one. The Warren County Farmers’ Fair runs a full week, Saturday July 25 through Saturday August 1, and the hot air balloon festival is layered on top of it. We mean that literally. The fair has its own tractor pulls, carnival rides, livestock judging, agricultural exhibits, and food. The balloon festival adds mass launches and tethered rides on top of all of it. A weekday evening visit is calmer and more focused on the balloons; the weekend bookends are full county-fair chaos with balloons overhead. Pick your day intentionally.

Different address: 1350 Strykers Road, Harmony Township (Phillipsburg area)

This is the navigation mistake we see most often. The Farmers’ Fair is at 1350 Strykers Road, Phillipsburg NJ, not at Warren Community College. The two locations are about 15 miles apart. Phillipsburg sits closer to the Delaware River on the western edge of the county; Washington is more central. Set the address in your phone before you leave the driveway, not when you’re rolling down I-78 trying to remember where the festival actually is. We’ve had pickup miscommunications start exactly this way. The Phillipsburg fairgrounds use I-78 west to Route 22, or the I-78 west to Route 519 approach if you’re coming from the north.

When to come for the mass launch versus when to come for the fair

If your goal is the balloons, target a weekday evening or one of the early-morning launches (6:30 to 7:30 AM, calm-air window). The midday hours during the festival week are mostly for the fair itself, since thermals ground most balloon activity through the middle of the day. The Friday and Saturday evenings of the festival week are the most crowded windows, with the mass evening ascension and the fair’s peak attendance overlapping. If you want photos with the after-dark balloon glow, those evening windows are exactly right, just plan around the traffic.

Warren County Hot Air Balloons, Fun and Games Festival (September 19 and 20, 2026)

Back at Warren Community College for the season’s final event

The September edition closes out the year. Same campus as the June festival, same 1:00 to 8:30 PM hours both days, rain dates September 26 and 27. The Fun and Games framing leans family-focused, with the late-summer feel of a school-year kickoff weekend. The September evening light is genuinely beautiful for balloon photography, with the angled sun catching the envelopes during the 6:00 to 7:00 PM launch window. Footing on the grass field is firmer than midsummer (less ground moisture from the day’s heat), so the photo-walking is easier underfoot. A practical note we tell every September caller: it gets cool fast after sundown in Warren County in late September. Pack a layer.

Tethered balloon rides: what they cost in 2026

Per balloonfestnj.com, here’s the 2026 tethered-ride pricing across the Warren County festivals:

• $350 per person for a single rider or a group of two to three
• $325 per person for groups of four to five
• $825 for a couples-private tethered experience (two people, dedicated basket)
• $1,250 for a 3-pax private tethered experience

Tethered means the balloon goes up roughly 50 to 75 feet on a fixed line, then comes back down. It’s not a free-flight ride over the countryside. The free-flight ones (the long ones over the rural ridges) are separately bookable through individual pilots and cost meaningfully more, but they’re not part of the standard festival ticket. Tethered rides are weather-dependent and launch in the early-morning or pre-sunset calm-air windows. If wind picks up, the line gets shut down for safety, and that’s the call of the pilot on the ground that day. We’ve had clients get bumped from a tether window twice in three trips. The pilots have the final word, which is exactly how we’d want it.

Getting to Warren County

From the Newark airport: the roughly 1-hour drive west on I-78

Warren County is about 60 to 70 miles west of Newark Liberty, depending on which festival venue you’re targeting. Warren Community College in Washington is roughly 65 miles, about 1 hour 15 minutes off-peak via I-78 west. The Phillipsburg fairgrounds at 1350 Strykers Road are about 70 miles, about 1 hour 25 minutes off-peak. Saturday-morning traffic on I-78 westbound is genuinely light most weekends; the eastbound return after a sunset launch can be slow if there’s an unrelated East Coast event drawing traffic back to the metro. The drive itself is one of the more scenic interstate runs in the state, with the rolling Watchung-and-beyond foothills climbing as you head west.

Route 57 approach for Washington and Warren Community College

From I-78 west, take the Route 173 exit toward Asbury and Washington, then connect to Route 57 east. The campus address is 475 Route 57. The final two miles are a divided two-lane through Washington Township farmland, gentle enough that even a first-time driver in the area won’t miss the turn. The campus access road is well-signed on festival weekends, with volunteers directing parking flow on the busier afternoons.

Strykers Road approach for the Farmers’ Fair

The Phillipsburg fairgrounds use a different exit pattern. From I-78 west, exit at Route 22 west, then turn off onto Strykers Road. The address is 1350 Strykers Road, Harmony Township. The final approach is rural two-lane through farmland with horse barns on the south side. The fair posts its own parking-direction signage from Route 22 in the festival week, but the GPS pin to 1350 Strykers Road is the cleanest input. Again: this is not the Warren Community College venue. Set the right address before you leave.

Why a Sprinter beats two minivans for a multi-family balloon-festival day

The honest math on a multi-family Saturday out to Warren County: two minivans with two adult drivers means one parent is driving on each end of the day, the kids are split between two vehicles, and the gear (camp chairs, cooler, photo equipment, layers for the evening cool-down) is split too. A single Sprinter for eight to ten guests keeps the families together, lets every adult enjoy the day without driver duty, and handles the gear in one cargo area. The Sprinter van vs multiple cars page covers the cost math in detail, and the short version is that for groups of eight or more flying in together for the weekend, the Sprinter beats two SUVs by 20 to 35 percent on most non-surge bookings and beats them by more on event weekends. The other piece, the one parents tend to flag after the fact: kids stay in one vehicle with all the cousins, which is a sanity multiplier on the trip home when the sun is down and the energy is gone.

The full picture on visiting a NJ balloon festival in 2026

Pulling it together: New Jersey’s 2026 balloon-festival calendar is the three Warren County events run by Flying Festivals of Warren County, not the Solberg festival that ran for 40 years and is currently on hiatus. Two of the three festivals are at Warren Community College in Washington (June 6 and 7, then September 19 and 20). The big one, the week-long Farmers’ Fair, is at a different address in Phillipsburg from July 25 through August 1. Tethered rides run $350 per person at all three events. Drive time from the Newark airport is about 1 hour 15 minutes via I-78 west, with the second-festival Phillipsburg venue adding another 10 minutes.

If you’re flying in from outside the region and bringing kids or extended family, the Sprinter math works. The Newark airport Sprinter van service page has the flat rates by destination, and the Sprinter van vs multiple cars page covers when one vehicle actually beats two on cost. The group airport transfer tips guide covers the broader planning questions for multi-family arrivals. The umbrella Newark airport transportation guide covers EWR ground transport across every destination, and the Newark airport car service homepage is the starting point if you’re new to how we work. If the September weekend lands on your calendar alongside the Asbury shore, the Sea.Hear.Now 2026 guide covers the same Sept 19 to 20 weekend on the shore side of the state.